Is this a logical reason to change a baby’s name?

[MongerNoLonger]

My DH is from Spain, so we decided to give our child a name that is common in Spain. The problem is that I’ve noticed that people intentionally try to avoid saying her name. I believe it is because they’re worried that they’re going to mispronounce it or feeling self-conscious that they’re going to sound strange whilst saying it (because it doesn’t sound as natural when said with an English accent). Even friends and family will call her the baby or little one instead of saying her actual name (whereas my nephews have always been referred to as their actual names).

She’s a few months old, and I think that it would be wise to change it now (before she becomes aware of her name). I really don’t want my child to endure a lifetime of people going to great lengths to avoid saying her name. Our first names are such a core part of our identity. What are your thoughts?

Is it a name that contains sounds that don’t really exist in English? Eg so many people whose first/only language is English struggle with the word ‘ chorizo’.

If you love the name just teach your friends and family how to say it correctly and ask them to please use it instead of avoiding it.

My cousin is 23 she still gets called baby or the baby cos she’s the youngest cousin. My friends son couldn’t say her little girls name so called her sissy and we all her that - they are teenager now.

I don’t think changing her name is the way to go. I would either just use it a lot around people so they know how to pronounce it or use a nickname

They don't struggle with it. They've heard it said as choritzo so often they don't know that it's not right. Same with piella, expresso, lartay, taggytelly and brushetta.

The trouble is, it's not just friends, family and colleagues that have to say it. It's people who you'll only encounter once and then never see again. My husband (who I mentioned in a comment above, who switched to using his middle name rather than his foreign first name) got sick of explaining his name to complete strangers he might not ever see again (the receptionist at the hospital, the bloke at Halford's, your friend's mum's neighbour, every single call centre operative every time you have to ring up a helpline about anything at all...).

Yes, I think this is obvious - surely? Your name is going to be said many times a day by the people in your own culture/town/area, so why would you actively choose a name that many people there will struggle with or find comical or unfortunate in the local language/culture? If you find a particular name quirky, amusing or endearing for whatever reason and are determined to use it, get yourself a hamster.

I actually think it's a nasty and selfish thing to do, to deliberately deny your child the basic right to have people confidently using their name and then, every time they meet or speak to a new person, being greeted with "Hello.......... errrm, errrr, I'm sorry, I don't know how to say your name", when it could have been "Good morning, Laura - it's great to meet you".

If you liked ethereal 'nature names' and decided to call your child Mist or Misty, that would be quirky but totally fine and generally positive in an English-speaking environment; but if you'd moved to a German-speaking country and were settled there for the long haul, I certainly wouldn't recommend it! I would say the same to an Indian couple who had settled in the UK and who wanted to name their baby boy Dikshit.

It's very different if you choose to move somewhere different as an adult: you can know you will either be constantly correcting pronunciation, accept people calling you a local version/approximation of it or adopt a local name instead - whichever you prefer.

Why do you think the vast majority of English people will cheerfully go to Pwllheli on holiday, but not have the faintest idea how to say the name - even if somebody carefully, slowly and repeatedly models it for them? And that's not even a foreign place or language.

Yes, and even if you say Szczepan they will say Sheppan or Steffan or 'I'll call you Steve'.

And it will be nearly every day of your life, and if you say, 'Szczepan' again they'll roll their eyes or tell you you're wrong.

We live in a multicultural society anyone who says they can’t pronounce the name just can’t be bothered.

That’s not actually true though @Onmytod24. It’s often very difficult or even impossible for adults to correctly reproduce sounds that aren’t found in their own language.

So many people are saying “don’t change the name, use a nickname”. You are in fact suggesting the name is changed but just not on official documents. That can cause even more headache than just officially changing the name.

Many people definitely struggle with it.
I’ve heard a myriad of different pronunciations, chor-EYE-so was a memorable one.

My kids have Welsh names that people outside of Wales are unfamiliar with but once they're told they get it close enough. We're used to the misspellings and I totally get what you mean about identity, the names often create questions around meaning, where's the name from etc.

If it's a really long name I can kind of get the lack of confidence from people. It's odd that family haven't got it. I think you've got two choices - double down but give people a bit of info to help grow their confidence in the pronunciation. I pronounce my own name slightly differently if I'm speaking Welsh or English because of my accent. Can I suggest you do a little voice note or video for whatsapp family group chats "hey, we know some of you are struggling a bit with Ceridwen's name, it's ce-rid-wen with the emphasis on the second syllable. If you want to shorten it we've been calling her Weni, so wen-ee, it's a really important name to us because it means.... thanks so much, lots of love from Ceridwen and us".

Or "we've noticed that people are avoiding using Lleucu's name. We know it's unfamiliar to lots of you but we really love it and the meaning so if in doubt just remember it rhymes with "wakey" as in "wakey wakey Lleucu" and it's like Lake-eee but with the LL sound at the front. It's really important to us that she has a connection to our Welsh culture and identity and her beautiful name is part of that"

That kind of thing.

The more people who use the name, the more familiar it will become. My kids have had mates with all sorts of names. My youngest was saying yesterday that he only knows of 5 people with his name so they should make an exclusive club together (includes a guy who works at a local gallery, his sister's mate's brother, some guy off a Welsh tv show etc).

Or you change the name, which I think would be a huge shame.

You and DH obviously loved the name enough to bestow it upon DD.

Rather than abandon it to appease others or through fear, stand by your choice and educate others unsure of how to pronounce it.

These days I imagine a good number of DC will have difficult first or last names to pronounce.

How come the Daily Mail manage to call the Spanish King Felipe on its gossip pages rather than Philip but the Spanish equivalent rag feels it has to use Carlos and Guillermo?

Or "we've noticed that people are avoiding using Lleucu's name. We know it's unfamiliar to lots of you but we really love it and the meaning so if in doubt just remember it rhymes with "wakey" as in "wakey wakey Lleucu" and it's like Lake-eee but with the LL sound at the front. It's really important to us that she has a connection to our Welsh culture and identity and her beautiful name is part of that"
It doesn't rhyme with wakey, and poor little Lleucu will probably get called Thlakey, Hlakey, Clakey or something equally hideous.
In desperation, she'll probably end up saying 'Lucy'.

Find better reading material.

Good response for when you’re wrong.

I speak fluent Spanish, and I struggle with saying chorizo in English... "if I say "cho-ree-tho", will people think I'm a twat?" Cho-ree-so is equally valid, that's how they say it in some parts of Spain. But I'm not doing the Spanish rolled "r" - then I really would be a twat, no two ways about it. But in that case, why do the Spanish "z"...if I'm not doing the Spanish "r"? I have been known to just say "choritzo" just to avoid looking pretentious... at some point the word will become fully absorbed into the English language, and be absorbed into the English phonemic system, Spanish students learning English will be taught "choritzo is how you say chorizo in English", just like "speederrr-man" is how you say "spiderman" in French.

I would have thought that everyone can pronounce Phoebe after years of Friends! Many years ago I heard someone say Her-mee-onee for Hermione, after the HP films I would expect it to be pronounced correctly. Teaching abroad I found having a girl called Marie Jesus in a class to be challenging.

So many responses are “don’t change it if YOU love it”. Who gives a flying fuck what the parents who don’t have to deal with the bullshit of having a crap name love? It’s the poor kid who has to live with it. Will it cause her endless hassle and having to explain how her name is said? If yes, change it.

It’s like the narcissist celebrities with lovely traditional names who saddle their kids with the most awful names. Eg Katie (Katrina) who calls her children Princess and Bunny. Or Anne-Marie with Forever Sugar.

How so? Teach the child there full registered name but call them a shorter/nickname most people do it.

Theodore - get Theo/teddy
Joseph gets Jo
Charlotte gets lottie
Kathryn -Katy

my son gets called buddy - he knows that’s not his name but it was nickname his grandad gave him and everyone started calling him it

I wasn't "wrong". The convention in English is to use 'King Felipe of Spain'.

Use her middle name?

All well and good saying that but people don’t have to say the name at all and could just avoid it, if it causes too much hesitation or self consciousness - if it’s a name than requires a bit of an accent or unfamiliar mouth feel.

Give her an English middle name. She can use her Spanish name in Spain and English name in the UK.

@musicandmen , the being known as two names can be a problem.
If, for example, you are a Catherine known as Kate, you basically have two names so there will be occasions when documents don't match.
You could be Catherine Anne Smith, C A Smith, Kate Smith, K Smith ...